Month: April 2017

So, Troye Sivan is a pretty cool dude. Raised right here in Perth, Australia, the now 21 year-old started gaining popularity from his YouTube channel on which he would sing and create comedic lifestyle videos. Now, he has toured the world with his first full-length album. See? Cool, right?

‘HEAVEN‘ (linked is the music video, it’s seriously powerful) is one of the heavier tracks on the record Blue Neighbourhood (2015), in which Sivan discloses the struggle he had with coming out as gay. Sivan opens with the lyrics:

The first line, “the truth runs wild” is repeated throughout the song, explaining how fast word spreads, especially for someone with such a heavy social-media presence. With homosexuality being a somewhat (a lot of us are really accepting of this community, but some still are not) controversial topic, it can mean having to deal with possible backlash with no preparation, and that’s a pretty scary prospect. Sivan also discusses how he kept up the façade in hopes of protecting the feelings of his friends and family, which only ended up with him suffering more. Other lines of the first verse include:

“This voice inside / Has been eating at me / Trying to replace the love that I fake / With what we both need.”

“Trying to sedate my mind in its cage / And numb what I see.”

The suffering is so clear in these lyrics— it’s hard to imagine the struggles Sivan and so many others have been through at such a young age. He sings again of trying to hide and even change his sexuality for the better of those around him, and an attempt to convince himself that what he is feeling is untrue.

The chorus is almost a plea-turned-confession— perhaps to God, perhaps to anyone willing to listen.

“Without losing a piece of me / How do I get to heaven? / Without changing a part of me / How do I get to heaven? / All my time is wasted / Feeling like my heart’s mistaken / So if I’m losing a piece of me / Maybe I don’t want heaven.”

Sivan has spoken about the questions that arose when he started to realise he might be gay, and quite a few of them surrounded the existence of God and heaven, amongst finding love, having a family and the like. As Sivan started to become more comfortable and self-aware, he started to realise that if he can’t live his life as himself, maybe it doesn’t matter if there is a heaven or not— he doesn’t want to have to fake his way there.

I can only imagine that this song would act a great musical alternative of support for anyone in the same position as Troye. Even though society as a whole is becoming more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, divulging anything about yourself is often harder when it comes to friends and family, and yourself.

If you take anything from this song, let it be that you don’t have to hide such a huge part of yourself for the benefit of anyone else— and that goes for anything, even a passion or an aspiration that might seem absurd to those around you, but is something that you love.

If any of you readers feel the need to talk to someone, don’t hesitate to contact Beyond Blue, or even reach out in the comments of this blog. I’d like to think I have a pretty warm community, but any haters will definitely be told goodbye!

Welcome, my friends, to the epitome of social observation in song form.

‘Loving Someone’ by The 1975 is a track from their most recent, lengthy-titled album I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it (hereon referred to as ILIWYSFYASBYSUOI— okay maybe just ILIWYS).

The boys from Manchester are known for their tendency to speak— or rather sing their mind, often resulting in songs that either make little (have a listen to this one, and check out the lyrics) or a lot of sense, like the one we’re about to discuss.

‘Loving Someone’ opens up a conversation about the conditioning nature of the media and society on us youngens. There’s a ‘boppy’ (for lack of a better word) tone to the music, and combined with something between singing and rapping (sapping?), it gives the song a beat-poem feel. It packs so much into four minutes and twenty seconds, that the first verse should give us enough to review for this one. Lead singer Matthew Healy opens with the lyrics:

“My heart is telling me the telly isn’t telling me anything I need / But it needs to keep you selling me / Besides celebrities lacking in integrity / And holding up the status quo / Instead of showing the kids that they matter.”

Seriously though, how many times have you felt influenced to change something about yourself after watching or reading something? After seeing a celebrity market something they probably have never, and will never use? We’re such a valuable piece of the market when it comes to technology, fashion and makeup that brands will go to crazy lengths to get us on their side. Our material side gets blown up, and who we really are gets forgotten.

If the band weren’t already nailing the expression of their frustration with society, Matty continues with:

“Who’re you gonna batter next? / Just keeps hold of their necks and keep selling them sex / It’s better if we keep them perplexed / It’s better if we make them want the opposite sex.”

I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. When the ‘norm’ of sexualising young (and older) bodies brings in so much cash each year as we go on the hunt for products to make us skinnier, our lips fuller and faces better looking, why would the media not keep trying to impose it? It’s not like it’s completely derogatory or something! And then there’s the fact that even though the world is becoming more and more welcoming and accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, they are hardly represented correctly, if at all in contemporary media.

Before I summarise, I just have to pay my respects to this awesomely self-deprecating line:

“I’m the Greek economy of cashing intellectual checks.”

Wow. Just, wow.

So thank you, Matty Healy and the rest of the boys from The 1975, for using your platform to speak out about some pretty serious issues that us millennials face every day. As we become more suspicious and aware of the objective of the media, it figures out more discreet, slimier ways to get into our heads. Therefore, I feel like there’s only one option…

To say that the Queen of haunting, powerful tunes is back is an understatement. Lana Del Rey is back with a bang, my friends. She just dropped her first release from her upcoming album Lust for Life on her YouTube channel, on the 18th of February.

The simply titled ‘Love’ explores a not so simple theme that is said to carry on throughout the album. Her previous records, as she stated in a press release (via Rolling Stone), she made for herself. “But this one is for my fans, and where I hope we are all headed.”

In classic Lana style, the music behind her voice on ‘Love’ is reminiscent of a heartfelt song from the Sixties in which one would normally profess their undying love for another.

Instead, Del Rey delves into what it means to be a young person in today’s day and age. She opens with the lyrics:

“Look at you kids with your vintage music / Coming through satellites while cruising / You’re part of the past but now you’re the future / Signals crossing can get confusing / It’s enough just to make you feel crazy, crazy, crazy, sometimes.”

The passionate crescendos in the chorus paired with Del Rey’s smooth vocals were nearly enough to make me forget to pay attention to the real meaning of the song –

“You get ready, you get all dressed up / To go nowhere in particular / Back to work or the coffee shop / Doesn’t matter ‘cause it’s enough / To be young and in love,” – but as a going-on-20-year-old, it’s way too relatable to miss.

In a world wrought with conflict, pressure and constant stress, a love story is often something we yearn for to get us through. Not necessarily with a lover— perhaps with a friend or a passion. But romantic ideals are barely acknowledged, in the big scheme of things, as important. Our era of modern romance seems to consist of fuckboys (see incredibly detailed, emotional definitions here— give one and two a read!) and lovers initials disappearing and reappearing in Instagram biographies.

This song rejects that, explaining that your seemingly pointless routine of getting all done up for no particular reason isn’t unimportant if you’re— well, if you’re happy. That love is important, and to use it as an escape from the real world every now and then isn’t a terrible thing. That as the future generation, it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and confused with what’s going on in the world, but to know that as long as you know you have love somewhere, you’ll be okay.

All right, someone please explain how she doesn’t make it sound as cliché as I just did.

Ah, she’s a professional songwriter? Got it.

So, Del Rey sings of a love story we all dream about and urges us to chase that dream. A commenter on the audio video (username: Kacem Bengraa) said it pretty well.

“Lana’s music make you nostalgic about that love story that you never really had.”

Never had yet, Kacem! Never had yet!

Okay Lana, we really hope you’re not instilling a false hope in us, because we’re about to say it…